Cita de oro

This is one of Alistair MacLean's most nervously exciting thrillers, and the film is equally sweaty. You won't have any nails left to bite when it is over.

A Caribbean cruiser with the crème de la crème on board, all posh multi millionaires with one or another question mark, is leaving some port somewhere, there is a gang sitting around the roulette, there are cocktail parties, all are well dressed and may not appear unless they are proper enough, and of course there is a femme fatale among them, seemingly the mistress of David Janssen, one of the greatest question marks on board.

There is also a suspicious cancer patient closely guarded by a forbidding German nurse, and soon important members of the crew start to get killed, especially around the communication centre.

Fortunately Richard Harris is on board, and another one to help with the situation is Gordon Jackson as the doctor, whose help is going to be needed when the ship gets crowded with patients and bodies.

There is a suspicious coffin on board as well, the contents of which is anything but a dead body. There the intrigue starts, and Richard Harris will get his hands full in due order, as he always does.

It's a great film of suspense no matter how cheaply made it is, you don't have to put much effort to it when Alistair MacLean has written the story and already provided all the details needed to put together an awesome show of violence, war, gunfights, sinking ships, explosions, bloody murders and a terrifying plot. Great show!

"Golden Rendezvous" is an utter mess of a movie. On the screen, for sure, but allegedly even more so behind the scenes. Lead star and notorious troublemaker Richard Harris was drinking heavily on set, fired fellow actors (including the almighty Christopher Lee), and independently decided to rewrite the scenario and consequently delaying the filming schedule. Not that the scenario couldn't use a couple of good rewrites, though. It's an adaptation of an Alistair MacLean novel and, in my humble opinion, he was one of the most overrated blockbuster authors in history.

We're aboard of the Caribbean Star; - a former cargo ship rebuilt into a cruise ship. Well, actually, it's not much more than a ramshackle and floating casino full of miserable old gamblers. One of them is a terrorist and he brings a lot of heavily armed men on board. The hijackers aren't interested in the tourist passengers (and who can blame them) and want to trade their lives against a shipment of gold on another ship. However, First Officer John Carter sees his chance to become a hero.

The most positive thing I can write about "Golden Rendezvous" is that it's extremely violent. The shootouts, notably in the casino when the terrorists enter, are bloody and explicit. Apart from the blood-red highlights, the film is dull and uninspired. Initially I hoped it would be a sort of glorious and flamboyant disaster movie, like there were many during the 70s decade, but it's a caper/heist flick that never really kickstarts. There are many great names in the supportive cast, but they are all wasted. Burgess Meredith and John Carradine depict insignificant old gamblers, and David Janssen's character does nothing but boozing vodka. I assume his assignment was to do in front of the camera what lead star Richard Harris was doing behind the scenes.

Alistair McClean's Golden Rendezvous has Richard Harris as first officer Carter who on-board the casino/cargo ship the Caribbean star becomes involved with intrigue and the usual McClean daring do. John Vernon is the villainous Carreas who holds the ship to ransom with an atomic bomb in return for gold bullion, the inspiration for Die- Hard is all too apparent you have Harris sneaking about the ship in a manner all too familiar which Bruce Willis would later emulate Ann Turkel(former Mrs Richard Harris) Burgess Meredith as a shady gambler, John Carradine also a gambler. it's an entertaining film which is unobtainable for years! as luck would have it you can watch this on you-tube! hopefully some bright spark will release this on the shiny format.

Terrorists kidnap a nuclear scientist. Later a strange passenger and strange cargo are loaded aboard a tramp steamer which will pass within a few miles of a ship loaded with gold bullion. Coincidence?

THE GOLDEN RENDEZVOUS is one of those films which evokes "what ifs..." What if the producers had attached the prelude filmed when the show was broadcast on network TV? What if they had hired someone other than the thoroughly soused Richard Harris? What if Ann Turkel had been costumed in sexier outfits? And what if the producers hadn't hired a very overweight (and, at that time, very well known) Dorothy Malone for a throwaway role?

The prelude, added for TV does wonders for the films exposition. The film sans the prelude is much truer to the Alistair MacLean novel, but what is clever in novels is sometimes simply baffling on the screen. The ending is actually better than the novel; and, it would have been great if Harris hadn't resorted to some silly derring-do with dual submachine guns; and even better if he hadn't forgotten his lines in the denouement?

The best thing about this movie is the terrific (and I mean TERRIFIC) score by Jeff Wayne. The music adds a sense of urgency one never feels from what is up on the screen.

"Golden Rensezvous" looks and sounds a lot like a TV movie, but the one thing that is quite un-TV-like about it, at least for its era, is the amount of violence it contains: lots of bloody squibs, stabbings, even a massacre of innocent people. The film is also notable for its similarities to "Die Hard", which came out a decade later: terrorists and hostages in a confined space (this time, a ship), and one resourceful hero who has to fight them from the inside. Of course you have to ignore the various implausibilities, like the astonishingly easy way in which the bad guys smuggle themselves AND a bomb inside the ship. Unfortunately, Richard Harris, who is usually an excellent actor (check out the same year's "Orca" for an example), seems to be operating on autopilot here, except when he's in action. Ann Turkel is decorative most of the way, until she picks up a machine gun near the very end. There are some other big names in the cast, but most of them are almost completely wasted. The movie gets a passing grade, but you can see why it is largely forgotten today. ** out of 4.